Published 2003-04-23T00:00:00Z”/>

Natelle Fitzgerald<br>Assistant Features Editor

It’s a symbiotic relationship.

Some students are cashing in on their mandatory fees included with tuition by using the campus escort service when they need a ride home after dark. Other students called Community Service Officers are acquiring experience and a paycheck while helping out their peers.

On a Wednesday night, Annie Siluvangi presses the red button on the metal call box located just outside the library. Seconds later, the phone rings at the University Police department where a dispatcher answers Siluvangi’s request for a ride home.

The escort on duty is Kris Sundby, a public administration major who also works for the department as a CSO. She buckles herself into the electric Ford Ranger and meets Siluvangi near the call box.

Siluvangi uses the service when she has evening classes and can’t get a ride home from a friend. For Siluvangi, who is an instructional technology major, walking home takes 20 minutes through some parts of town near West Sacramento Avenue that aren’t well lighted.

“It’s pretty dark, so you don’t want to walk. I feel good that I always get a safe ride,” Siluvangi said as she searching for the seatbelt in the warm truck cab.

She said she knows she pays for the service through fees, so she feels OK about using it. She used to take a taxi until she learned about the escort service.

“I never knew that I could get the escort until a friend of mine told me,” Siluvangi said. “I’ve been using it this whole semester.”

In fact, many female students use the service. Sundby said the number of escort requests per night averages between 10 to 20 people during a 5-hour shift, before daylight savings time extended light hours for students walking home.

The escort service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The request must originate from somewhere on campus and allows a student to be driven anywhere within one-mile of campus.

Sundby received another call to pick up Jian Keng Xiao, a business major, who called the University Police from her cell phone. Xiao needed a ride to West Second Avenue.

Xiao, an international student, said she thinks the service is convenient.

“I think it’s pretty good, after you work late at school,” Xiao said. “Usually I go home early, but I had a meeting tonight.”

Sundby said she thinks the service is also great for the international students who wouldn’t necessarily have their own car or know a lot of people whom they could call for a safe ride home. She pulled up beside Xiao’s apartment and dropped her off.

“Control 5-9, 10-98 West Second Avenue,” Sundby reports to the dispatcher at the completion of another assignment.

Sundby said she gets to know some of the people she picks up regularly during her shift as a CSO. She said she enjoys being able to bring security to her peers, because she can relate to late hours at the library.

“One thing that I like about this service is that when a CSO provides (the escort) it’s like students helping students,” Sundby said. “Being a student myself, even though I don’t utilize the escort service, it really makes me feel comfortable knowing that I have that option.”

Frankie Hockstaff, the supervisor of the CSOs, said the escort service is part of community-oriented policing.

“It’s not a program; it’s a philosophy,” she said. “Law enforcement and community work together toward a common goal, which is safety. There’s no reason for anyone on this campus to have to walk by themselves.”

Hockstaff praised her CSOs and said she thinks they’re good for the campus because they understand other students and create a familiar link between the student body and University Police.

“They really do have the welfare of the community at heart, you know; it’s their community,” Hockstaff said. “It takes a certain personality to be able to go out, do a good job — someone who’s responsible and confident.”

Between calls, the escort on duty cruises around the campus, acting as the eyes and ears of University Police. Sundby slowly meanders through the chain-linked fences and construction sites around campus, monitoring parking lots, areas around the dorms and Yolo Hall behind Acker Gym.

The radio attached to Sundby’s blue uniform chirps with static. The dispatcher tells her about another call at Butte Hall.

“Control 5-9. 10-4,” Sundby replies, clipping her radio back onto her left shoulder.

Sundby pulls up to Butte Hall, while Joanne Adams, an anthropology lecturer limps toward the truck with her walker and her injured foot.

The escort service, used mostly by female students, is also available for someone like Adams who needed help to her car because of an injury.

Sundby lifts the walker into the back of the truck and drives Adams to her Ford Mustang parked near Whitney Hall.

“It’s part of the duties of the CSO and that program,” Sundby said. “I like being out and about. I like to be on campus.”<em>Natelle Fitzgerald can be reached at <a href= “mailto:[email protected]”>[email protected]</a></em>